With their season on the line, the Sharks used home
ice to buckle down and take Game 6 of the Western Conference Semi-Final series
with the Los Angeles Kings on Sunday night. San Jose scored a pair of goals
then hung on to extend the series to a decisive Game 7 on Tuesday night in Los
Angeles. Every game in the series has been won by the home team, which is a
trend that the Sharks will need to end in their next meeting with the Kings.

Win or go home won't be anything new for the Sharks. They needed to
find a way to get the job done on Sunday, and did so early enough to dictate
much of the play. The Sharks scored 6:09 into the game while on a 5-on-3 power
play, after Mike Richards was sent off for hooking, and Anze Kopitar followed
him with a dreaded delay of game penalty for tossing a puck over the glass 14
seconds later.

Joe Thornton converted on that two-man advantage by
snapping a Joe Pavelski feed from outside the right post past Kings goaltender
Jonathan Quick for his 2nd goal of the playoffs. The Sharks spent the first 90
seconds of the power play trying to find an opening in the Kings defense, but
it took Pavelski forcing the issue with a high risk pass to generate that
opportunity.

Pavelski was hovering near the inside of the left circle
while eye-balling Thornton on the other side of the slot. Kings defenseman Matt
Greene dropped to a knee to try and take away the passing lane, so Pavelski
sent the feed through Greene's legs for the one time chance that Thornton
buried.

T.J. Galiardi made it a 2-0 game 4:10 into the 2nd period by
racing up the right wing and snapping a shot past Quick from the right dot
after Scott Hannan pushed a feed to him from the Sharks zone. Galiardi took
Pavelski's lead by sending his shot through Robyn Regehr's legs, using them as
a screen, to beat Quick. The shot sailed over the Kings goaltender's glove hand
for Galiardi's 1st career playoff goal.

Kings winger Justin Williams
setup another huge opportunity for the Sharks when he opened up Marc-Edouard
Vlasic's lip with a high stick that drew a 4-minute power play for San Jose.

The Sharks misfired on the chance to pile on to their lead, failing to
generate any serious scoring chances during the extended man-advantage. The
Kings suppressed the double minor by going at the Sharks rather than sit back
and hope to defend shots from in tight.

Using the penalty kill as
motivation, the Kings cut the Sharks lead in half two minutes after Williams
penalty expired. Kings captain Dustin Brown threw a puck to the front of the
Sharks goal from behind the end-line near the right corner. Sharks goaltender
Antti Niemi tried to cutoff the puck by sliding to his left, but the puck hit
him on the side of his left leg pad and bouncing into the goal.

Los
Angeles smalled blood after Brown's goal and tried to turn up the heat on
Niemi, but the Sharks weathered the storm to close out the period.

Rather than sit back and try to hold on to their slim lead, the Sharks opened
the 3rd period with an extra jump in their step. San Jose pushed the play in
the Kings zone in an attempt to keep the puck away from their own net.

James Sheppard worked a scoring chance by racing around the right side early in
the period, but Quick denied him. Patrkc Marleau had the best scoring chance of
the period when he took a centering feed at center ice before beating Jake
Muzzin on a breakaway chance that Quick snuffed out after the Sharks centerman
crashed in on the Kings crease.

The Kings were forced to pull Quick
with 1:36 left in regulation after failing to get any of their 9 shots in the
period past Niemi. The Sharks calmly turned aside the Kings late rush. The
Sharks intercepted a pass in their own zone and worked the puck up ice where
Thornton deferred on a shot on the open net from center ice, and instead worked
the puck to Brent Burns.

Burns didn't have an angle on the goal so he elected
to wind the puck around the end boards. Once the Kings got the puck out of
their own end, Burns stepped up again, winning control and dumping it back into
the Kings end to kill off the remaining 15 seconds on the clock.

With
the series all knotted up at 3 games apiece, the deciding contest will be
played on Tuesday at 6:00pm

Game Notes:

Sharks
defenseman Justin Braun was injured in the 2nd period when he jumped onto the
ice and immediately aggrevated something in his left leg. He went down to his
knees and had to be helped off the ice. He returned in the 3rd period, playing
a total of 13:51 in the contest.

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